


Last Stop Bar and Existential Casino

by thatsrightdollface



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Alcohol Mentions, Alternate Universe - Angels & Demons, Alternate Universe - Non-Despair (Dangan Ronpa), Gambling, Gen, M/M, Shuichi dies and Kokichi gambles for his soul basically, inspired by a song
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-30
Updated: 2020-11-30
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:40:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27791671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatsrightdollface/pseuds/thatsrightdollface
Summary: “God and Satan, they gamble when you’re deadBeams of light, one SpriteThe other’s bourbon insteadAnd all your thoughts, yeahThey rot!”— “Parasites,” Ugly Casanova
Relationships: Oma Kokichi & Saihara Shuichi, Oma Kokichi/Saihara Shuichi, with hints of possible
Comments: 5
Kudos: 61





	Last Stop Bar and Existential Casino

**Author's Note:**

> Hi there!!! I hope you enjoy this, if you read it. :D A long, long time ago (June), Ouma Month/oumaevents on tumblr had an "Angel and Demon AU" day -- I didn't write anything for it back then, but I've been meaning to for a while. At some point I started something where Kokichi was a demon bartender working at a casino full of trapped souls, but I got kinda stuck on it........ anyway, this isn't that at all, and it's pretty short, but I had fun with it.
> 
> Thank you for reading!!! I hope you're staying safe and doing as well as possible.

Shuichi Saihara hadn’t expected death to taste carbonated. But then, you know... he hadn’t expected to die at all that day, so whether or not eternity was distractingly like dissolving into grape soda was honestly the least of his worries. But just for the record: it was, for Shuichi. That was ‘cause of the particular angel who grabbed him up, though. Death could’ve tasted like all sorts of things: straight bourbon or deep red wine, blue raspberry punch or even... in certain rare, merciless cases... the truth. More on that later. 

Shuichi had been walking around with his upperclassman at Hope’s Peak University — Nagito Komaeda, from his second-level Sociology course... they were supposed to do a PowerPoint together — when a car careened through the trees and carefully manicured hedges around campus, trailing branches and screaming behind it like some cars in the movies trailed aluminum cans and streamers after people got married. Apparently, the driver’d had a heart attack behind the wheel and completely lost control; apparently, this sort of devastating thing happened around Nagito Komaeda often enough that he tried to take responsibility and hand himself over to the campus authorities. The last earthly words Shuichi heard involved Nagito Komaeda breathlessly blaming his “luck curse,” or something. An apology he could barely understand. Shuichi was smeared on the cheerful green grass, and the sun was in his eyes and _everything was pain_ and then he was swallowed up by drowning weightlessness. Shuichi had been getting a Criminology degree, to better assist his uncle with the family’s detective agency, before his ruined body gave out on him. He tasted grape soda. He was gone. 

Shuichi came back to himself in what looked like a seedy, neon-dizzy casino, with syrupy lights flickering everywhere and a smell like burning in the air. This wasn’t any earthly place; Shuichi knew that as fundamentally as he knew he and Nagito Komaeda would’ve done a decent job on their PowerPoint assignment if they’d gotten a chance. There was a bar a ways away, serving brimstone and smoke, serving holy water in crystal decanters, and... yes... grape soda from a brand Shuichi had never liked buying when he was alive. Panta. The taste was always too artificial, he thought, but now the bottles of Panta felt like the realest thing around him. The truest lies. 

The sign over that bar read, “Last Stop,” with a halo around the “L” and devil horns sitting jauntily on the “S.” Shuichi took a deep, rattling breath. He tried to remember the pain from when that car smashed him to messy pieces, but all he felt was fizzing. Carbonation through his limbs. He tried to think back on what he’d expected from an afterlife — nothingness or ghosts, returning to nature or the River Styx or what — and the cheerful chiming of slot machines felt even more ridiculous, here. There were all sorts of horrible sigils, on those slot machines; spells more ancient than the earth. 

“Hi there, Shuichi,” somebody said, from just over Shuichi’s shoulder. Brushing warm, soft fingertips along the back of his neck, passing by. “This shouldn’t take too long. I’m _really_ good at this game!”

The angel winked at Shuichi as he took his seat at one end of the table, with eyes that crackled like carbonation, sticky-sweet as artificial grape syrup, and Shuichi understood a little more, then. The angel was wearing a short human skin with flippy purple hair and a suit with lots of unnecessary buckles, mismatched metal eye decals slapped all over it like buttons. Occasionally, those button-eyes blinked. Didn’t some people say angels were shaped out of wheeling eyes and wings? 

“I’m dead,” Shuichi told the angel. 

“Nice detection, there. Really putting those sleuthing skills of yours to good use.” Shuichi didn’t think the angel was trying to be mean; he shuffled a deck of cards with a big smile. It... wasn’t an encouraging smile, though. There was something intense and wild about it that set Shuichi on edge. This angel was like vertigo. “I’m Kokichi, by the by. Angel of Death, unless I’m lying! 

“Angel of —”

“Death. Yup. I didn’t get assigned to you, but I took a peek at all the crimes you were gonna solve if you _didn’t_ get hit by a car in the middle of a grassy field. Gotta say: I’m impressed. You might have saved so many lives, Shuichi... you’re something special.”

There was a lot Shuichi could’ve said to that, but he went with, “Why are we here?” because that felt sort of pressing, just now. Something was forming in the seat across the table from the angel, something that made Shuichi’s insides crawl with a thousand spiders. The demon took shape slowly. Looking at her seat burned Shuichi’s eyes, but she would be all lace and pearls, cold dark eyes and skin like porcelain when she arrived. She had dressed herself up like Hell’s Ultimate Gambler, but she was something else, something hungry, something that could wear a thousand people’s lives and never be satisfied. 

“ _I’m_ here to gamble with the demon queen Tsumugi for your soul,” Kokichi said. “You’re here to get gambled over. Don’t be scared, okay?”

And there, it happened just like it did so often in stories about angels: _be not afraid._

The table in front of Shuichi was velvety — when the demon queen Tsumugi manifested herself, she smoothed her painted claws across it and left singed-away streaks in their wake. There were hollow eyes staring from the choker around her neck. She tipped her head to Kokichi the Angel of Death (or the angel of something else? What if he _had_ been lying?) and said, “You may begin,” as though she knew all of heaven would have to wait for her command. She would prop her ornate boots up on the backs of angelic soldiers and take milk with bobbing sugar cubes in her tea.

So she thought. 

Kokichi hummed to himself as he dealt hands for the both of them, and the game began. Shuichi sat between these cosmic forces, stricken, feeling his living world rot away from him as Kokichi and Tsumugi played. Who had he been walking with, when the car came hurtling out of the bushes for him? What had his skin felt like, before it was fizzling grape soda sweetness? What was there, waiting beyond this casino, beyond the Last Stop? Between you and me, it would’ve been a different story completely if Kokichi had reached out to Shuichi the way some angels do, under those special circumstances I mentioned — with the truth — there in his last living minutes. Watching a game like this the way it was _really_ played could be too much for human souls. Infinity unfiltered was a lot to swallow without a chaser. Kokichi liked grape soda — he kept a bottle of it by the leg of his chair, Shuichi learned, and took thoughtful swigs in between playing his hands. He had meant to be kind. 

Shuichi overheard casual smalltalk about what’s been going on in hell, and gossip about which archangel’s been sneakily going out with which godstruck mortal, and he flinched with secondhand embarrassment watching the angel try and fail to initiate cheerful discussions about comedy TV. By the end of things, it looked like Kokichi was getting his divine ass mercilessly handed to him. The demon queen Tsumugi was murmuring over what tortures her master Junko — who had fallen under her first name, Lucifer, long before everything — would have waiting for souls like Shuichi Saihara’s, that could have been honorable. That could have stood against the world for the sake of humanity. Shuichi would be an example, in hell. Shuichi would be proof of ruin, of wasted potential, of a despair so sharp and biting no sugary syrup could hide it away. 

That was when Shuichi noticed Kokichi reach down to grab his bottle of grape soda, propped up by the leg of his chair, and come back with _extra cards_ , too. The angel slid them from the carpet into his hand, one deft, practiced motion, like he’d cheated at cards to bring souls to peace before. Kokichi’s next plays were winning ones — not dazzling, not suspicious — but he taunted the demon queen like he knew he wasn’t gonna get caught. He teetered on the edge of a building and flipped off gravity. He could fly. 

It was a close game, even with Kokichi rigging things. When the demon queen scattered into ash and spiders, dissipated into ancient wanting, Kokichi said, “Phew!” and flopped his head down onto his arm. Let out a shaky laugh. He grinned at Shuichi from behind his purple hair, and said, “Aw, you look so worried — cheer up! You can have your memories back, when we get where we’re going. If you want ‘em. Some people don’t.”

“I... yeah. I want my memories.” Shuichi held Kokichi’s eyes for a long moment. He didn’t ask what would happen, if anyone found out what this particular angel had done to make sure they won the game for Shuichi’s soul: angels were supposed to be truth and purity incarnate, and they were supposed to follow their assignment schedules, and Shuichi thought he had some idea what balancing acts the heavenly spirit that came for him might’ve been known for. Kokichi offered him his hand, and it was at least as warm as a human’s would’ve been. Shuichi hesitated, processing everything, gaining control of his arms back, but he took that hand in the end. What did he have left to lose?

Maybe Kokichi noticed how tightly Shuichi was holding on to him as they left that place, because he squeezed his fingers gently. Said, “You can stick with me for a while, to get adjusted. If that sounds good. Y’know, I’m an Angel of Knowledge, so I’m used to showing puny mortal souls the ropes!”

Shuichi snickered despite himself. “You’re an Angel of Knowledge, now?”

“Always have been. Unless I’m lying. So, you want the tour?”

Shuichi wanted the tour. He would mourn for his lost futures later... for his uncle and his friends, for his stifled hopes and all those stupid regrets... and he knew this angel would mourn with him — Kokichi was an Angel of Possibilities by then, of course, so it would be only natural. They stepped beyond the Last Stop together, and for a second heaven tasted like carbonation, too. 

Only for a second. 


End file.
